2010 Roundup

Sick of statistics yet? Well, here's a few more (you can skip this if you want, if you've been following along you know all about them).

In 2010, these are the items that I finished:

6 pairs of adult socks, 5 for me and 1 for my MIL.
1 sweater, again for me
1 afghan. Phew! glad to have that done.
2 baby sweaters
1 pair of booties
12 hats
1 scarf

and under the misc. category:
1 Grover golf club cover
2 bunny nuggets
3 swiffer covers
1 pattern written for Diana socks.


For charity, I also made:
2 adult sweaters
24 pairs socks, all sizes
8 pairs of mittens
8 hats

Ah, it was a good knitting year!

December Roundup

Rounding up the projects for December, I count:

1 Brambles hat
1 Zportz hat

4 hats and 1 scarf, all for the charity of poor college students (aka DD#1 and friends)

1 Grover golf club cover

1 Cobblestone sweater that was fixed
1 teal sweater that is going away (sleeves went to the trashcan, sweater, er, now vest, is going to the thrift store.)

Finishing up with
1 pair of socks for me!

Happy New Year! (and socks, of course!)

There's no way that I can finish the scarf by 11:59pm, so I'll just show you the pics of my completed socks and plan on a finished item shortly into the New Year.

I made a plain vanilla pairs of socks for me, the first of this winter season.




They're using Wisdom Yarns Marathon Socks Boston, color 215, size 1 dpns, 64 sts.

The heel is different, though. Awhile back, someone on KnitTalk described the method that she uses on her Dirgis socks, and hence the Dirgis heel.

Basically, you:
-do 1/3 of the rows for a regular heel flap (in my case I did 12),
-do a complete short row heel (in my case I used the yo-yo heel),
-pick up the stitches down the mini heel flap +1 (in my case I picked up 7),
-decrease every second row on the mini gusset until back to the orginal number of sts (in my case they were 16,32,16).

And, Voila!


There are slight(!) holes to be seen, but they won't bother me, and may go away with the wearing.

Proof that there are two of them:



This is my last knitting project of 2010, taken in the waning light of day.



Wishing you all a Happy and Safe New Year!

Basketball knitting

As you know, I do a lot of knitting at sporting events. This week there was a basketball tournament, so two days in a row I got a lot of knitting done.


On Tuesday, I got this much done (from marker to needles):

This was for a game and a half. Really a quarter of a game, a 20 min. warmup of the next two teams, a game, a 20 min. warmup, and a quarter, which adds up to way more than a game and a half.

It's following Jared Flood's striped scarf recipe. These are the second two skeins, so I'm more than halfway done.

Then on Wednesday, I got this much done:



Just a warmup and a game (and we won!). Plain vanilla socks for me--this is the second one.

Both are nearing the ends, I'm thinking if I knit really hard I might be able to finish both of them before the New Year's.

But there's no more BB games, so I'm on my own.

A BIG BOX OF YARN!!!

TODAY I GOT A BOX OF YARN IN THE MAIL!!!! (As the all caps indicate, I AM SHOUTING 'cause I'm so excited!!! 'Cause it was a really big box with a whole lot of yarn in it!!!!)



I ordered yarn from Smileys--they had a really good sale on wool yarn. Mittens_4_Akkol is gearing up to knit for the grads again this year and I signed up for a grad sweater. I was hoping to find a grad whose favorite color was beige, but there wasn't one. (Maybe not too surprising, but it's just that I have a sweater's worth of beige yarn just begging to be made into a sweater.) The grads were asked to list their favorite 3 colors in order of preference, and about half of them listed black or navy blue first. I decided to bite the bullet and knit a black hoodie, and hence, that's why I needed some new yarn!

20 skeins of Filatura Lanarota Rich Wool in black (at $1.50 per 50 gram skein, who can beat that?). This have enough leftover to stripe another sweater. Or something. It's always nice to have extra black yarn hanging around.




4 skeins of red to make a red stripe, and 16 skeins of FL Wool Sprinkles in blue (for extra.)(Or maybe for me.)



2 skeins of FL Fashion toes for socks. Of course.



The black hoodie will be my first new item to cast on, but maybe I'll need to finish an item or two first.

Or not.

A couple more presents

In case you think I haven't made enough hats lately, I have another one to show you. This one was for DS#2 and is called Zportz. The idea is that you can make it in your team colors. DS didn't want team colors, though, he just wanted something bright.

And it is.

I dyed the green as neon as I could get, using some leaf green and some yellow Wilton icing colors. The grey is Patons Classic Wool in Mercury. I added an extra 10 st repeat and it makes the perfect size for DS.





DS#1 didn't need a hat, so he got something different.





It's a Grover golf club cover!

I used this Grover Puppet Pattern, using Patons Classic Wool in Royal Blue and Fun Fur in bright blue.

I used needles a size or two larger, but otherwise basically followed the pattern.

When done, I felted it to get Grover the right size.



DS didn't want a golf cover unless I made him a cool one, and I think I did!

Some hats and a scarf

For Christmas, I made 4 hats and a scarf for the charity of poor college students (aka DD#1 and her friends.) They were done several days ago, in time, certainly, to take a good picture or two. Alas, as DD was packing up to leave, I was flinging the hats under the tree, or on top of DD#2's head to take a fast photo.

So, I present to you some really mediocre photos. Per usual.

First done was C's scarf. It's Lion Brand Homespun with K2xp2 ribbing.




Next was A's hat--with a request to make it big enough to tuck up all her hair. I think I succeeded.



it's JC slouchy hat. I knitted for a couple of more inches before starting the repeat to make it extra big. Yarn: Plymouth Outback.

K's hat was basically made up. 6 sts cables were surrounded by 2 st faux cables.



It's also nice and slouchy. Patons Classic wool in eggplant.



DD#1 wanted another beanie, so she got Odessa without the beads, knitted with Cascade 220 in red with 3 knitted loops on top.



C got another made-up hat, using a Fibonacci sequence in stripes of Patons Classic wool in grey and black.



I liked the crown decreases enough that I though about writing up this pattern, but I don't remember what I did. I might try to replicate it... If I do it soon I might remember what I did. Or not. And this picture doesn't show it.



That was a fun project to do, trying out new patterns and seeing who will like what. Plus, it's snowing--the perfect time for a new hat! (or scarf!)

Fix-it Day

I decided to take a break from Christmas presents (because with only 7 days left until Christmas, why not waste a whole day by NOT knitting Christmas presents?), so I declared yesterday as Fix-it Day.

And I did. Fix-it, that is. Sort of.
(Ah, what's a blog post from me without some really bad sentences all strung in a row?)

First up was my Cobblestone pullover. Remember it from here?

The neck was too tight, so I decided it was time for a re-do.



I ripped out all of the red/purple mix on the top, skipped the several rows of garter stitch and went straight to the stockinette rolled edge and bind off.



It's no longer choke-y around my neck, so I declare it a success.



(Chopped off my head 'cause I'm looking as bad as I feel--bad head cold and swollen eyelids feeling. Plus Sat. morning blech.)


Next up was my teal cardigan, first finished in Jan. 2008.

Here's what it looked like:



Too big, sleeves too long, too awkward. The yarn was White Buffalo unspun, which made it impossible to rip out and reuse.

So, about a year ago I decided to shrink it to see if it would help. It then looked like this:



It shrunk in length, but not much in width. Still awful.

And it sat on my sweater shelf for another year...

Finally, I decided to rip off the sleeves to see if it could look good as a vest.



Hey, in theory it was a good idea.

In actuality, it wasn't. 'Cause now it looks like this:





(Ignore my face. And my hair. See above explanation.)


And the previous shrinking episode seems to have shunk one side more than the other. It would be unfortunate if I planned on wearing it, but as it is, it doesn't matter.

The question becomes: What should I do with it now? I no longer want to wear it. Also, donating it to the thrift shop won't work, since I can't imagine this looking good on anyone. I thought about felting it and making potholders, but I'm not sure if I will even want to use them as it will remind me of my failed sweater.

Any suggestions other than just throwing it away? ('cause that's what I'm leaning towards.)

So, I've had one success and one failure, and now...back to Christmas presents...

I'm fine, thanks

I'm fine, thanks.

That's how I mostly respond to the question, "How are you?"

When really, I could more honestly answer:
-Slightly tired, in the I-never-go-to-bed-early-enough kind of way,
-Slightly frazzled as I'm starting to realize that even though I work in a store that's had Christmas stuff for sale since July, that doesn't really count for decorating my house and that I should do something about it.
-Slightly behind on Christmas gifts as I'm realizing that the gifts won't just buy themselves.
-Slightly crazy, as I'm realizing that adding on the knitting of 5 extra gifts at the last minute may not have been a good idea.
-Very tired of science projects, as a kid just kicked me off the computer to do some last minute typing. (It's due tomorrow, and then DONE for another year.)

But, I just say, "I'm fine" and leave it like that.


I've been moving along on the knitting.

Here's my stack of completed projects:



(Better pics coming later...)

And here's the stack left to do:



Yep, that is just green yarn. No needles are involved yet.

Ball of yarn

Check out my birthday cake:




It's a ball of yarn, made by DD#2. See the needles?

It's just too funny--I laughed and laughed. The outside is in my favorite color, and the inside is my favorite flavor (devil's food). Yum!

And if you count the candles, then I must be 12 years old.


(12 times 4, that is.)

Finished items

As promised, here are my finished items (that really were finished in November).

Denim toddler socks:



36 sts, sz 5 dpns, Patons Classic wool in denim, 5x1 ribbing throughout the sock (not as so's you could tell.)


Brambles Beret:



Brambles Beret is from Knitty, deep Fall 20010 and seems to be the "in" thing to knit right now, at least according to Ravelry. DD#2 chose the pattern and the yarn, which is Wool-ease grey. Size 6 dpns, med. size band and long length. Looked like it would be too small but turned out okay. (She says it slides off her head, but I say just wait a bit, it'll stretch out.



I followed the directions, and blocked it over a dinner plate with a strand on yarn strung right about the ribbing to keep it from stretching out. Most of the time, the dinner plate was resting on top of a heater vent. It looked rather strange (and I had to remind myself not to step on it), but it worked well.



It has some really nice decreasing at the top that maintains the details of the cables and such until the end. Lovely pattern!